Lessons We Must Learn During This Pandemic

For most people this will be a hard thing to hear. Imagine if we get through this whole pandemic and never learn why they happen, and how they can be prevented. All the deaths, the unemployment, isolation, extra work for our health workers, extended loss of things we enjoy like travel, disrupted education, extra stress, and health consequences even for the survivors.

In a white paper, the Humane Society International details where viral pandemics come from, why they are so prevalent, and what we can do about it. 

Here's what the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said in 2013. "Most of the new diseases that have emerged in humans over recent decades are of animal origin and are related to the human quest for more animal-source food.”

Animal agriculture, the mass production of large volumes of animals for meat, all packed in close proximity, is the perfect breeding ground for viruses. It's an uncomfortable truth. One we've known about for decades and yet the problem continues to get worse.

In Denmark, as you read this, minks raised for their fur have spread a coronavirus mutation back to humans. Only some ~200 people are estimated to have gotten it. The last thing we need right now is a mutated coronavirus on top of the one we are currently fighting. And now 15-17 million minks are going to be killed on mass to hopefully prevent the spread. Was it worth the risk? What if we fail to contain it? And what a heavy toll to pay, for animals we raised for our conveniences. 

I don't write this to fear monger. Honestly, I mean that. Rather, to ask ourselves is it worth the risk? Playing a game of probability, with the odds against us, where the consequences are pandemics. Hoping that the next one isn't as dangerous or that we only only have to deal with one virus at a time. The lives of billions of humans and billions of animals in the balance.

Or we could reduce. Change what we eat. Less meat; more plants. For me personally, I know I hate pandemics more than I hate vegetables. 

Article: https://www.hsi.org/news-media/animal-agriculture-could-spark-next-pandemic/

White Paper: https://blog.humanesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Animal-agriculture-viral-disease-and-pandemics-FINAL-4.pdf